Humility Helps People Trust You

When you demonstrate that you want the best for them, people will follow you. It causes them to believe your message, to like you and want to please you. Living for others has been a struggle for me because I don't always trust people's judgment. I also don't want to submit myself to them because I want to reserve my option to bail out if I don't like the organizational results.

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On one occasion, I debated whether to resign from a church because I wasn't sure if my work was finished. Trusted friends pleaded with me to stay, to lay aside my ministry to the larger church in order to establish in the mind of my local church members that I was committed to them first and foremost. I trusted those who counseled me, but I decided to leave because I didn't trust the corporate heart of the congregation.

Through Jeremiah, God made it clear: "The human heart is most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I will give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve" (Jer. 17:9-10). I could not bring myself to trust their corporate heart; I could not even trust my own heart in the matter. The only thing I could trust was God's heart, and I flung myself into his care for the remainder of my days.